Miley Citrus logo
Become Miley Citrus
🪨

Soil science: what's actually down there

Sand, clay, water and pH: the physics and chemistry that decide which plants even show up. Learn this and your plant datasheets stop reading like hieroglyphs.

Opening soon

← Back to the universityStart here →

Lessons

  1. 101🧱Texture & structure: sand, silt, clay and the jar testYou can't change what your soil is made of, honey. You can change how it's built. Grab a jar.Planned
  2. 102💧Water & drainage: why wet winters kill more than frostIt's rarely the cold that kills your plant. It's three months of wet feet while it sleeps.Planned
  3. 103🧪pH & lime: why blueberry and thyme can't share a bedYour soil is full of iron and your blueberry is still yellow. The pH is holding the key, babe.7 min readOpen
  4. 104🔁Everything is a loopA willow, a pot and five years: the tree gained roughly 74 kilos and the soil lost 57 grams. Almost everything a plant is comes from air and water.Planned
  5. 105🍽️What a plant actually eatsSeventeen elements, most of them in traces. More fertilizer isn't more food. It's mostly salt and wishful thinking.Planned
  6. 106🔍Read your soil without a labA jar, a shovel and your nose tell you more than a soil test kit. No app required.Planned

Coming up in this faculty

🧱 Texture & structure: sand, silt, clay and the jar test

Planned

You can't change what your soil is made of, honey. You can change how it's built. Grab a jar.

  • ✦Why sand drains, clay drowns and Flemish sandy loam does both on a bad day
  • ✦The jar test: your soil's texture in one night on the windowsill
  • ✦Reading your plot's code on the Flemish soil map

💧 Water & drainage: why wet winters kill more than frost

Planned

It's rarely the cold that kills your plant. It's three months of wet feet while it sleeps.

  • ✦Field capacity, wilting point and the water your plant can actually drink
  • ✦Gley marks: how a rusty streak in a test pit predicts root rot
  • ✦Mounds, raised beds and drainage: when to hold water and when to move it

🔁 Everything is a loop

Planned

A willow, a pot and five years: the tree gained roughly 74 kilos and the soil lost 57 grams. Almost everything a plant is comes from air and water.

  • ✦The carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and water loops in one picture
  • ✦Where every loop leaks: leaching, gassing off, erosion and the harvest
  • ✦Why phosphorus is the loop humans broke: from mine to sewer to sea

🍽️ What a plant actually eats

Planned

Seventeen elements, most of them in traces. More fertilizer isn't more food. It's mostly salt and wishful thinking.

  • ✦Mobile vs immobile: why old leaves tell one story and young leaves another
  • ✦Iron chlorosis vs magnesium deficiency: same yellow, opposite cause
  • ✦CEC in plain words: why clay and humus hold lunch and sand lets it slide

🔍 Read your soil without a lab

Planned

A jar, a shovel and your nose tell you more than a soil test kit. No app required.

No homework. No exams. No LinkedIn badge.

Become a Miley Citrus to save your favourite discoveries and pick up where you left off.

Become Miley Citrus